But there was no time for doubt.
I shot to my feet, gun raised and pointed at the light. “Inverness Police! Don’t move!” I yelled.
So, of course, they moved.
All four leapt to their feet and scattered, jumping off the castle and into the shadows beyond the torchlight so that their forms became blurry and distinct, hard to aim at.
“Go!” I shouted at Fletcher and ran towards a shadow in the night. These punks would not get away again.
I heard a muffled yelp instead of a response, and I twisted, skidding to an awkward halt on the wet ground, to see Fletcher struggling against the burly arm of a fifth, unseen assailant. She’d dropped her gun in the attack, hands scrabbling against the forearm wrapped tightly around her neck.
I ran towards her, gathering as much speed as I could in just a few short steps, and tackled the man at the waist, tearing his grip free and dropping us both to the ground. His thick fingers searched for my eyes, and I stretched my head as far back as I could while I fought to keep him on the ground with one hand while the other brought my gun into position.
I shot him in the leg. The shot was loud in the heavy, otherwise silent night, echoing across the hill. The man screamed a second later, and his hands dropped from my face to clutch his leg as I rolled off him, breathing heavily. The acrid stench of gunpowder and the tang of fresh blood hung in the air.
I climbed to my feet and then searched the man, ignoring his pained curses and insults. He had a serrated hunting knife on him, but nothing else. I grabbed him by the coat and heaved him up so that we were face to face as I crouched over him.
“Who the hell are you? Who do you work for?”
The man glowered up at me. His face was white with pain beneath his grey-speckled beard, mostly concealing the crescent-shaped scar on his jaw. His dark eyes glinted like polished stone in the faint light, and every line of his face was weathered as if it had been carved from the mountainside long ago.
I gave him a shake. “Answer me.”
“No,” the man ground out through gritted teeth.
I heard rustling footsteps approaching through the brush behind me, and I glanced sharply over my shoulder, heart racing until I realized it was just Fletcher come to join the conversation, gun held at the ready by her leg. She nodded to me that she was okay.
“Where’s the boy?” I demanded.
The man tried to spit in my face but couldn’t gather enough moisture in his mouth. I pried his hands away from his bleeding leg and ground my thumb into his bullet wound. I was furious, rage sweeping through me like the tide crashing against the shore. What kind of sick bastard played games with a kid’s life?
The man couldn’t hold back the scream building behind his lips.
“Where’s the kid?” I yelled in his face, twisting my thumb down harder.
Fletcher grabbed my shoulder and pulled. “Callum, stop. What are you doing?”
I threw her off, but her tone was enough to make me pause.
“The castle!” the man bellowed. “There’s a hatch in the floor! Stop, please!”
I released my hold on his leg so I could unhook the cuffs from my belt, then I dragged him over to a stout bush that sat nearby, securing his wrist to the base of the trunk.
“Wait here,” I said and jabbed a finger in his face.
My hands shook as I stood, but I covered it by retrieving my gun from where I’d dropped it, brushing dew from the barrel. I straightened and searched the shadows around the castle, but the other four kidnappers seemed to have disappeared as the hillside was silent and still.
“Callum, what was that?” Fletcher asked, concerned. She took a step towards me but seemed hesitant to come any closer.
“We’ve got a kid to save,” I replied, ignoring her question.
But I frowned as I began to pick my way towards the Castle of Old Wick. Something felt off to me. Obviously, they knew we were coming because they hid a man in ambush, but they also ran off and abandoned him, knowing full well that they had us outnumbered? They had no trouble trying to kill us this afternoon, so what was different tonight?
My eyes constantly moved as I crept towards the small tour, Fletcher right beside me. I tried to keep my gaze away from the torchlight, not wanting to ruin my night vision, but it was hard, seeing as it sat directly in front of us. If the other kidnappers were still there, they were well hidden.
I did not like it.
I reached the spilt rocks that led up to the castle’s floor. A single torch lay on the stone, its beam splashed across one wall. I climbed up the makeshift stairway, pistol gripped tightly as my heart pounded within my chest. I snapped the weapon up as I stepped off the last rock onto the flat floor, spinning to search the entire room, though there wasn’t much to search. The space was barely larger than my outstretched arms. It was also decidedly empty.
“Shit.”
I picked up the torch in my left hand and swept its light across the ground, searching for the aforementioned hatch. Tucked in the corner, I spotted a wooden trapdoor.
“There,” I said to Fletcher. I kept my voice low, though I wasn’t sure why, since I was also waving a light around.
I motioned for her to open it, holding the torch below my gun as I pointed both at the hatch to cover her. Fletcher tucked her pistol away to free up her hands
